


Dealer's Choice

by manic_intent



Series: Martingale [4]
Category: John Wick (Movies)
Genre: Alpha!John, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Kid Fic, M/M, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega!Santino, That fic where John does believe in consequences, loose ends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 20:07:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11192496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: John had been acting odd all morning, staying closer than usual, even when Santino snapped at him after breakfast. Normally, John would take the hint and make himself scarce, sitting in the garden or hiding in the nursery, but today something had clearly malfunctioned. Santino was heading out to the driveway, buttoning his jacket, when John caught him by the elbow. Cassian actually startled. When they weren’t alone, John was painstakingly unobtrusive.“Yes?” Santino pulled away.“Where are you going?”“Rome.” Santino narrowed his eyes. “Why?”John stilled, looking Santino over searchingly. His face stayed blank, but Santino had learned the cues, subtle as they were. This was John’s version of confusion. “Now?”“Obviously. What’s wrong with you?”John stared at him for a moment more, bemused, then he leaned in, close to Santino’s ear. “You’re going into heat.”





	Dealer's Choice

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't going to write more, but then I agreed to watch John Wick 2 again with a friend in cinema on Monday so... here are the last ficbunnies? Or so I think now. D: 
> 
> Also I realized on a second watching that I do have a few canonical mistakes in my fics, ones that I'm not going to fix:  
> 1\. I prefer the spelling "bogeyman" to the canonical American "boogeyman". Latter spelling just looks weird to me.  
> 2\. The Italians actually have 3/12 of the High Table seats!? Kinda sounds unfair to me. World's pretty big. :o Lots of cartels and triads out there etc.

before

Santino’s heat was in full gear when he woke up. The world was brighter like this, warmer, and even without the crystalline sharpness to his vision he would’ve guessed it from the way John was already hard inside him, growling softly against his ear when he tried to move.

“So,” Santino said. His voice was thin and breathy, instincts haywire, caught between warning-danger-blood and the irrational conviction that he was caught, that he had to submit. John was the strongest alpha Santino had ever met. Normally, it would have been something to be wary over. Now, he wasn’t sure if he liked it. His fingers itched for a gun.

“So,” John rumbled, and tucked his fingers between them, touching Santino’s folds with a lazy proprietary caress that had Santino shivering and growing wetter. 

“Can we move to the bed?” When John said nothing, Santino said, “Or have you decided to kill me after all?” 

“Hrmm,” John licked at scent glands, and Santino forced himself to stay calm, to wait. But he could still cheat. He clenched down, and John hissed. “Okay,” he said, deep and hungry. “Bed.” 

They barely made it - Santino had just climbed onto the large bed when John shoved him down with a hand on his shoulders, pushing in. Loosened from the knot, it was a ready slide, this time, though Santino yelped and arched and swore as John ground in the thick root of his cock, bracketing him down. 

“Fuck, this hurts,” John said, with a grunt. “How long’s your heat?” 

“This isn’t a normal heat,” Santino said. “And I don’t think you’re in… ngh… any shape to have me like this. Let up. Turn around.” 

John ignored him, nipping him on the back of his neck and starting to thrust anyway, maddening, gentle thrusts, clearly trying not to aggravate his own wounds. Santino pressed his forehead to the bed with a groan of frustration that made John snort, though in annoyance or amusement Santino could not tell. He was chasing his own pleasure, against his pain, and without heat fogging John’s senses Santino wasn’t even sure if John would’ve even managed arousal. He had to be in agony. That was fine. Santino didn’t care about John’s creature comforts. And being pinned under his enemy was better than the alternative. Santino had never been so glad for his nature. 

The knot swelling up wasn’t so bad the second time, though John still pinned him down, as though expecting him to squirm free. Santino whined, frustrated, swearing at John in Italian as John filled him up with a second load then twisted to go down on his flank, breathing hard through clenched teeth. “Bastard,” Santino hissed, once John recovered enough to nuzzle closer and lick his throat. “At least… touch me, asshole. Help me get off.” 

“Not here to do you any favours,” John reminded him, and Santino flushed, annoyed, but he took the point. He whimpered as he pulled on his cock, too aware that John was watching him, breath hot against his shoulder. Getting off was easy during a heat, at least, and Santino had always been fond of big cocks; John was the biggest he had taken and if not for the knot he would have been fucking himself on it again, hungry for more.

“How long’s your normal heat?” John asked, when Santino had caught his breath.

“Why do you care?”

“Not really looking to get dehydrated. Might have to call for supplies.” 

“You have _such_ a silver tongue.” 

“Didn’t hear complaints when you had it inside you,” John said, and pressed up meaningfully when Santino started to argue. He groaned, clawing at the bed as the knot nudged fractionally deeper. It _hurt_ and yet it felt good, crawling back towards arousal before he was ready for it. 

“A day,” Santino confessed sulkily. “Happy now?” 

“Yeah,” John said, and nipped his neck again. “Sounds good.” He nudged up again, rumbling appreciatively as Santino cursed.

“Fuck you.”

John pressed his fingers between them, stroking the stretched flesh, curious this time, his touch light. Santino bit out another groan anyway, startled, and John stilled. “Today’s the first time you’ve been knotted. Should’ve asked earlier. Okay so far?”

“I like your cock,” Santino grit out. “Not sure about you.” 

John hummed, another low, rumbling sound. “One thing I remember about omega heats. Having an alpha around makes it longer.” 

Shit. 

Santino wasn’t sure when the tray of food had been delivered, though he let John feed him, and drank from the bottle of water pushed into his hands. Had someone come in? They’d have seen Santino pinned under John then, getting fucked and begging John to go faster. Even now, when he tossed the bottle aside, he pushed John down on the bed, grumbling as he fed John’s cock back inside, making a frustrated sound until it stiffened. “I like you like this,” John said, watching, and Santino rolled his eyes, riding him. 

“I hate you like this,” Santino shot back, teeth clenched, shaky with arousal and stinking of sweat and sex. “You talk too much.” 

“Not a complaint I’ve heard before,” John said, and pulled Santino down firmly on his cock, cutting off further argument. After this, Santino decided furiously, if he still lived, he swore that he would find a way never to see or speak to John ever again. Find a way to kill him for certain, maybe, if he could. 

On hindsight, forgetting condoms had been profoundly foolish.

now

It was obvious that Santino didn’t trust him with their daughter. Ares watched him closely whenever John was in the nursery, though she never made any comment. John didn’t mind. As he’d told Santino before, he knew what he was, as did most people in their world. _Death’s emissary_ , Gianna had named him, moments before her end. There should have been no place for him near a child, and yet here he was.

Baby Gianna had large, solemn eyes, and soft dark hair, pink-cheeked and plump. She was a quiet child unless she was hungry. John wasn’t so sure what to think about that. It was early days yet, he knew, but if the child had to take after someone, John had kinda hoped that it would’ve been her namesake. Her late aunt had fire, and ruthlessness that was not unnecessarily tainted with cruelty. John sat by the cradle, watching Gianna grasp at his finger, her little face frowning slightly in concentration. She had a surprisingly strong grip in her tiny, pudgy fingers. 

Ares was by the window, her back to the wall, occasionally glancing out. She noticed John watching her, and arched an eyebrow. He signed, -You could switch with Cassian some days.- 

-Why?- Ares tilted her head questioningly.

-You’re a fixer. He’s not.- 

-Ah.- Ares smiled faintly. -You’re doing my job for me. I don’t mind.- 

John started to reply, but Gianna burbled, and he looked quickly into the cradle. She only wanted one of her toys, and John nudged the fluffy teddy bear over. 

-She’s cute,- Ares signed. -Doesn’t look like you.- 

-Hoping it stays that way,- John admitted. 

-Maybe she’ll turn out like the sister.- John stared at Ares in surprise, and Ares smiled, enigmatic. -I’m loyal, but I’m not blind.- 

-Hope Santino doesn’t get wind of that.- John signed. 

-He isn’t blind either,- Ares replied, and looked back out of the window, clearly disinterested in further conversation, though she kept John in her peripheral view. John was fine with that too. If Ares was here to guard the baby from all comers, then it’d be unprofessional of her to get too friendly with anyone. 

Santino usually came by in the evening after dinner, after he’d finished up whatever Camorra business occupied his day. Tonight he looked annoyed, and was brusque as he picked Gianna up from the cradle, murmuring to her in Neapolitan as she cooed, rocking her as she pulled curiously at his suit. “Strange that human children are born so helpless,” Santino said, kissing Gianna on her forehead. “They cannot speak, cannot crawl, and must trust to the generosity of their parents.” 

“People generally call that kinda thing ‘love’,” John said, sitting by the cradle. “Isn’t it meant to be automatic?” 

“Love isn’t automatic,” Santino said, scoffing. “You choose to love. Sometimes subconsciously. You make a series of choices that begin at different stages. When you get pregnant. Or before, for some people, when they choose a partner. If parental love was automatic then there wouldn’t be so many abused or murdered children in the world.” 

“Suppose so.” 

“Do you love her?” Santino asked, settling Gianna back in the cradle as she dozed off. He only sounded mildly curious. 

“Yeah,” John said, then amended, “I think so.” He would kill for the child in the cradle, die for her, burn the world down to keep her safe if he had to. That was what John thought of as love, as far as he could understand it, in any case, and it frightened him a little now as it had before, when he had held his daughter for the first time. 

“Your eyes. I think you don’t know what it means to love someone,” Santino said, rocking the cradle lightly. “It’s meant to be a gentler endeavour. Your wife must have tried to teach you before. A project sadly interrupted too soon, perhaps.” 

“I think it’s different for everyone.” Helen had said that to him once, when John had admitted as much, in what felt like two lifetimes ago and so many missed chances in between. “You don’t seem so attached. Just the ‘minimum recommended contact’ with the baby, wasn’t it? Heard you and Cassian talking.” 

Santino frowned at him, and John almost started to apologise: he’d said too much—but Santino chuckled, a wry sound with little humour. “I was ‘attached’ enough to give her life. As to the rest? There is no room in our life for sentiment, John. Someday she will learn this too. For her, for me, there is no such thing as ‘getting out’. ‘Getting out’ is for people whose names bear no consequence. That is why it didn’t work for you. And it won’t work for us. Hers will be an… interesting life. She will have to learn how to make sure that it isn’t a short one.”

“You told me that you cared,” John said, though now that it had come to this, he wasn’t surprised. 

“I do care,” Santino corrected. “Just not in the way that you think.” He beckoned, and John followed him out, to Santino’s private chambers. To bed, maybe? No—Santino had stopped beside the statue of the woman and the spear, his hands folded behind his back as he looked at the owl on her shoulder. “Minerva,” Santino said.

“Sorry?”

“The Goddess of Wisdom and War. Originally from the Greeks, but the Romans did like assimilating pantheons, here and there. She was Athena to the Greeks. Minerva to us. Born from the head of Jupiter.” 

“Sounds painful.”

Santino sniffed. “‘Minerva’ was my first choice for a girl’s name. But Cassian is annoyingly sentimental, and he talked me out of it.” 

“Given what happened,” John said, “kinda think you owe it to your sister.” 

Santino shot an annoyed look over his shoulder. “We were never close.”

“I figured that out. Around when you sent me to kill her.” 

“A child’s name is a wish that you make on their behalf,” Santino said, clenching and unclenching his fists behind his back. “Jupiter heard a prophecy that his child would overthrow him, after he impregnated the titaness Metis. In his fear, he swallowed Metis whole. The titaness made armour and weapons for her child within, an act that caused Jupiter pain, and Vulcan split his head open when he could no longer bear it. From the cleft, Minerva emerged, adult and whole, bearing the arms that her mother had made.” 

“… Kinda not sure what wish you’re making here,” John said, peering at the statue. 

Santino laughed, which John took as a cue to come closer, and Santino let him scent his neck, fingers curling up to his skull, a brief, possessive gesture. “A child born of violence, _to_ violence. Yet she takes to war with grace, her ruthlessness tempered by restraint. She comes into her own with the help of no one.” Santino brushed his mouth against John’s jaw. “My wish.” 

“Sounds complicated. I just want her to be happy.” 

“People are complicated. It’s not difficult to be happy. You can induce it with a drug, if you wanted. We trade in many kinds.” 

“Not really what I meant.” 

Santino was quiet, studying the detail on Minerva’s shield: it was the severed head of a woman with writhing snakes for hair. “So. Will you still work?” he asked eventually.

“Said I would.” 

Santino nodded, tight and curt. He began to say something, frowned, and swallowed the words, pursing his lips. Then he looked at the owl again, and tucked his hands into his pockets. “Sal Ferrara. Go.”

#

John had been acting odd all morning, staying closer than usual, even when Santino snapped at him after breakfast. Normally, John would take the hint and make himself scarce, sitting in the garden or hiding in the nursery, but today something had clearly malfunctioned. Santino was heading out to the driveway, buttoning his jacket, when John caught him by the elbow. Cassian actually startled. When they weren’t alone, John was painstakingly unobtrusive.

“Yes?” Santino pulled away.

“Where are you going?” 

“Rome.” Santino narrowed his eyes. “Why?” 

John stilled, looking Santino over searchingly. His face stayed blank, but Santino had learned the cues, subtle as they were. This was John’s version of confusion. “Now?”

“Obviously. What’s wrong with you?” 

John stared at him for a moment more, bemused, then he leaned in, close to Santino’s ear. “You’re going into heat.” 

Santino blinked. He hadn’t even noticed, but now that John had mentioned it… this _was_ the prickling edge of heat to his mood today, the sense of buzzing irritation, the restlessness. It had slipped his mind. The last few weeks of his pregnancy had been messy politically, even with Ricci’s help, and he was still scrambling to catch up: he’d been about to head out to negotiate a takeover of a sector of Tuscany. 

“So?” he asked, and John stared a moment longer before he looked away. Disappointment? Or something else? Santino started towards the stairs, and paused when John didn’t move. “John.” 

John actually flinched, glancing up. When Santino beckoned, he loped over, head tilting, though he didn’t ask any questions as they got into the sedan, Cassian driving, Ares staying back with Gianna. 

“Something up?” Cassian asked, as they pulled out of the driveway. 

John looked over at Santino, waiting for his lead, and Santino tried not to feel gratified. John wasn’t much like a normal alpha in many ways because he wasn’t much like a normal _person_. Someone who had to learn and practice social cues was someone who could be retaught, and John was a good student when he wanted to be. 

“I’m going into heat,” Santino said. “Probably in a few hours. By the evening, latest.”

“Okay.” Cassian was a pro: he thought this over dispassionately, no judgement. “Think it’s gonna be a problem?” 

“If John starts humping my leg when I’m negotiating with Matteo, feel free to shoot him somewhere non-essential,” Santino said, and smiled when John sighed. This could be useful after all.

Matteo was an alpha. The blockers were starting to get overwhelmed by the time Santino sat down to negotiate, and Matteo kept sniffing, distracted in the smoky backroom of the bar. They discussed Matteo’s secession of territory in exchange for a slice of the black market trade on small arms, and in the middle of handover intricacies, Matteo wiped a hand over his nose, tapping his fingertips on the table, trying to breathe through his mouth. 

“We continue in three days,” Matteo said, a little hoarse. “Our talk. Or after your situation.” 

“What situation?” 

Matteo frowned at him. “You are an omega. You are cycling into… I can sense it.” 

“And?”

“The one the Russians call the Baba Yaga is your alpha?” 

“Mister Wick works for me.” John had actually tried to get into the room when Santino had walked in, private ‘chat’ be damned, and had glowered at Matteo when shut out. “Relax. He’s under strict instructions not to shoot anyone without an express order.” 

“Soon he will not care about express orders,” Matteo said, digging his fingertips into his palms. 

“Then maybe we should hurry this up.”

The rest of the negotiation was rushed and strained but polite, normal given how much nervous firepower was concentrated into the bar outside; Santino got everything he wanted and a little more. Matteo and his people left first, hurriedly. John was hands-off until they were in the car, then he rumbled appreciatively as Santino climbed into his lap, kissing him, breathing deeply. Hands squeezed his hips, encouraging Santino to rub against him, but John didn’t push when Santino stayed still. 

“Okay, you guys.” Cassian sounded amused. “Guessing we’re not heading back to Naples.” 

Santino glanced at John, whose eyes were dilated. He kept sniffing the air and frowning, his hips twitching up against Santino’s ass. “I’m not going to leave my daughter alone for three days. Drive.” 

John tensed up, but then he closed his eyes, his frown deepening, and breathed out through his mouth. Cassian sniffed, even as he said something quietly in Italian to a walkie-talkie. “She’s not exactly going to be alone,” Cassian said, as the convoy got on the move. “You _only_ have thirty permanent staff in that house. Four dedicated to her. I think you just want to torture us for a few hours.”

“What an interesting idea,” Santino said, inches from John’s lips, and smirked when John stifled a whine. 

Santino didn’t actually remember much of the drive back, or the messy stumble up the stairs, John growling in his ear. “Bed,” Santino warned, when John fumbled with his belt once they were through the door. John nodded tightly, blinking, pulling at their clothes on the way to the bedroom, John pressing sucking kisses on Santino’s scent glands, purring once they were naked. 

“Condoms?” John asked, curled over Santino on the bed, eyes blown dark. 

“Why do I always have to handle all the details?” 

John rumbled, distracted again, shifting down, licking a stripe up Santino’s cock before the scent of Santino’s juices got the better of him. Santino growled as John licked into him, as hungry as the first time, hauling up Santino by his hips as he drank. Santino yelped, then he braced himself on the bed, grinding against John’s mouth, nearly, not enough. John let up just enough to swallow a couple of inches of his cock, his tongue pressed hard against the swollen head and Santino was shaking into his first orgasm, furious. 

“Use your cock, asshole,” Santino snarled, once he caught his breath. “What’s the point of fucking an alpha if you’re not going to get to work?” 

John didn’t even glance up: he was wiping his beard off against the back of his palm, chasing the taste. “Condoms? Or you’re just gonna get pissed at me again if something happens.”

“I got an IUD,” Santino said, baring his teeth. “Happy?” 

“When was that?” Thankfully, John didn’t argue any further, and Santino sucked in a slow breath as he pushed inside, nice and thick and inexorable. 

“I don’t have to tell you everything,” Santino grit out, his breaths shallow as John bottomed out. 

“Okay,” John was bent against him, nuzzling his jaw, his throat. “Sorry.” 

Santino clawed at the faded ink on John’s back, then his hair. It was good and yet it always did hurt a little, no matter how gentle John tried to be. He chased the pain, grinding down. “Don’t want another accident,” Santino said, as John gasped against his ear. “Repeating history.” Succession in mafioso families tended to be ugly. John didn’t say anything, his eyes closed, fists clenched over the bed, though he glanced up when Santino prodded him in the shoulder. “No comment?”

“Kinda…” John swallowed. “Kinda busy right now.” 

“Please. You’re not even moving yet.” 

“I’m gonna hurt you if I move now,” John said, panting. “You’re tight.” John had been away the last week in New York, consolidating Santino’s hold on territories north of 16th street, starting with the disposal of Sal Ferrara and New York’s Cosa Nostra arm.

“I don’t remember you giving a damn about that the first time.” 

“You wanna bring that up? _Now_?” 

“Just move,” Santino said, and grinned savagely when John stared at him. “I don’t care that it hurts. I like it.”

Later Santino would briefly wonder if John had ever fucked his beta wife like this, the dead woman he had loved enough to tear down his world for, promising oaths, burning bridges. John snarled against his ear in between breaths, the bed creaking and groaning under his thrusts, and it did _hurt_ , more brutal than the first time; John had all of his strength and Santino had none of his reservations. The two-backed beast was loudly unforgiving. Fingers dug into his thighs, his hips, clenched over his arms, digging in bruises that Santino would feel tomorrow. He clawed tracks down John’s back in return, bit him hard over his shoulder, working in his teeth as John muffled a yell into the pillows, his knot swelling. His fingers shook as he shoved them between their bodies, stroking the stretched folds around his cock, too rough for pleasure.

Just like Santino liked it. 

The bed felt like an awkward fit when tied face to face, somehow too intimate still despite what they’d done between them, now and before and nine months in between. John’s eyes were closed, and Santino watched the darkened sky from the window, drowsy. Not far away, Gianna started to cry, a wail of hunger that had John jerking awake and blinking, though he grew still when Santino winced at the sudden pull. 

“I hate that sound,” Santino said, as eventually Gianna stopped crying, the wet nurse and nannies doing their jobs. Feeding was a messy business that Santino wanted no part of. He did what he had to with a pump in the mornings, the only part of the ordeal that he was willing to bear, and then only out of comfort. 

“Don’t mind it.” John said. John had taken to fatherhood surprisingly well: he spent a lot of his downtime in the nursery playing with Gianna, and had even, according to reports, learned how to change her diapers. Santino paid nannies for a reason, he told John once, and John had shrugged. Maybe he was trying to compensate. 

“Not going to talk about having more kids?” 

John stared at him, bemused. “I don’t think Cassian and Ares want to go through all that again. Or you.” 

“And you?”

“Not my call.” 

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Not my call,” John repeated. “So I didn’t think about it.”

That was something about John that Santino found both fascinating and infuriating. This was the key to John’s success as a killer, after all. He drew a straight line from A to B and rearranged the world itself out of his way if he had to: Santino had no doubt that months ago, had he simply taunted John, dared John to kill him, and left it at that, John would have shot him, rules be damned. 

“Besides,” John said, “I don’t believe in luck.” 

“Oh?”

“Good things don’t happen to me for long,” John said, stroking a palm down Santino’s thigh with a light touch, as though waiting for Santino to slap his hand away. “So when they do, I don’t get greedy.” 

“Sounds like you do believe in luck,” Santino said. “Bad luck.”

“I believe in consequences.” John looked tired as he said it, older. 

“If you did, I wouldn’t have had to blow up your house.” 

“Yes, _thank_ you for that. How could I ever forget.”

“Get some rest.” Santino said, closing his eyes. “You’re going to need it soon.”

#

“I really like babies,” Cassian admitted, as he looked into the cradle. Gianna burbled, reaching for him with grabby fingers, and he let her squeeze his hand. “Damn. Strong fingers.”

John nodded. It was a weird thing to be proud of. Life for John had its good moments and bad ones in the five decades leading to this point, but it had only now chosen to get weird, and he supposed he rather liked it. “Where’s Ares?” 

“We swapped jobs for the day. Giovanni Ricci doesn’t like me much. Didn’t approve of Gianna hiring me.” Santino was with Ricci in his study—the old man had come by to admire the baby, a tense moment watched over by far too many twitchy, weaponised people, in John’s opinion. He was glad that was over. 

“Why’s that?” 

“Thought I was no good. Guess he was right.” 

“Hey,” John said, frowning. “Just because, well—”

“No John,” Cassian cut in. “I got confident, because she was confident. Nobody’s dared to kill somebody on the High Table ever since there _was_ a High Table. It was a bad call on my part and Gianna paid for it.” 

Security _had_ been a little lax on Gianna’s side of the coronation party. John decided not to mention it. “Sorry.”

“Stuff happens for a reason. That’s what my mama used to tell me.” Baby Gianna was doing her best to gnaw on Cassian’s finger, gumming it mightily. “I came from a big family. Four brothers, three sisters. Parents owned a restaurant in New Orleans, and it was pretty busy. Us older kids pretty much raised the younger kids.” 

“Sounds like a good life?” 

“Eh, couldn’t complain. I still send money to my mama. They won’t talk to me anymore, but they’ll still take my money.” Cassian offered Gianna a stuffed bunny toy in return for his finger, which she relinquished with some reluctance. “Parents, huh.”

“I wouldn’t know.” John had done some reading up, but the internet, perhaps unsurprisingly, had set a very low bar for male alpha or male beta parents, despite being excessively detailed about everyone else’s obligations. 

“Well, at least _you’re_ trying,” Cassian said. “Not sure about the other guy.” 

“He does things his own way.” 

“You still don’t see it, do you? Didn’t he tell you that weird-ass story about some goddess born from a guy’s head?” 

“He didn’t make that up. Well-known myth.” John had also looked up ‘Minerva’, as well as her Greek counterpart. While Gianna was sleeping, there wasn’t much else to do but sit idle or read. 

“That’s not the point. Didn’t you get it? The goddess’ dad was scared that some kid of his would someday try to kill him.” 

“I don’t think it’d come to that,” John said, though he knew he couldn’t be sure. He’d seen how messy succession could be in the part of the world he had grown up in. Viggo and Abram had shared power, but it had been an uneasy alliance, sometimes fractious, split down clear lines, and they had conspired to murder their father to get to where they were. “If he was scared of that, why even choose to have the kid?” 

“That’s not what I’m saying. Minerva got along fine with Jupiter in the end,” Cassian said. “Even though Jupiter ate the other parent.” In the cradle, Gianna was falling asleep, rolling to her side. “You’re what, fifty? Getting kinda long in the tooth for this sort of work. You’re still the best, but age is catching up. I think Santino will work you until you die. That was his price, hm?” 

“Yeah.” Death was part of rolling the dice, where ‘work’ was concerned. John was under no illusions about mortality, his or anyone else’s. As Santino had said, there wasn’t that much room for sentiment in their world. 

“And you’re okay with that?”

“Guess I am.” What choice did he have? And he would pay more if he had to, if asked. 

“I like kids,” Cassian said again, staring into the cradle. “Whatever happens, I’ll be there. To watch her grow up. Hope she turns out as fierce as her aunt was.” 

John nodded. In the face of a promise this generous, expressing gratefulness was trite.

#

Despite everything, Santino had been surprised when John abruptly left with no warning or explanation. The nursery had been John’s last stop before he borrowed a car that he returned at the house in Rome. John had hailed a cab to the airport from there, and the flags Santino had put on John’s passport told Santino that John had flown to New York. He’d left the dog.

He was angry at first, and then, of all things, Santino had to admit that he was _hurt_ about it, and that pissed him off all over again. It was irrational. John had served him well, but he didn’t need John right now, particularly after he had retaken what he had lost in New York and consolidated the Camorra alliances with Ricci’s help. Italy was stable, New York was stable. He was busy expanding on other fronts, and maybe that was why he hadn’t noticed any warning signs. 

He’d been blind. Maybe careless. “I could go look for him,” Cassian offered one night, when Santino was in the nursery, trying to calm Gianna down. She’d been in a mood since John had disappeared. Dog curled under her cradle, ears flat, occasionally glancing up at all of them with sad eyes. 

“What for?” Santino snapped. Gianna hiccuped and Santino sighed, frustrated, when she started to cry. He was tempted to hand her over to the nanny and get out of earshot, but he rocked her instead, murmuring nonsense words in Neapolitan until she settled back down. He was tired when she finally decided to sleep, which was his cue to retreat from the nursery. Ares’s worried stare followed him out. 

“Well,” Cassian said, once outside, “pretty sure he had a good reason.” 

“We had a bargain. If he wanted to stay, he would work. Clearly, he’s now serious about retirement. I’ll respect that.”

“Tried calling him?”

“What for?” 

“Okay,” Cassian said. He was in one of his annoyingly reasonable moods. “Mind if I do?”

“If you want to waste your own time, be my guest.” 

“Eh, if you want to put it that way,” Cassian said, “I think I’m kinda due for some annual leave. Haven’t taken a break for five years. Might need a few days. You don’t have anything risky on your schedule for another week.” 

“Do what you like.” Cassian nodded, and at that, Santino said, “Going after John?” 

“Could be.” 

“Whatever his reason for leaving,” Santino began, then he shook his head. “No. I do not care.” And he _did_ try not to care, something that he managed successfully for a few days until Cassian called him from New York. 

“Found him,” Cassian said. “Was kinda messy.” 

“How messy?” 

“Few days more and he’d be nobody’s problem anymore.” 

That made Santino blink. “How did that happen?” 

“Seems he owed the Bowery King a favour. It got called in. He thought he’d pay it off while he still could.” 

‘Still could’? “Another marker?”

“Don’t know. Didn’t ask.” 

“Where is John now?” 

“Dragged what was left of him to his house.” Santino pinched at the bridge of his nose, and after a long moment, Cassian said, “Boss?” 

“What’s the general situation?”

“Favour’s resolved. House is secure.” 

Santino exhaled loudly. “Stay there.” 

He left Gianna in Ares’ care and took a handful of staff with him, annoyed. He was annoyed at the Bowery King, who had somehow managed to call in a favour from John; annoyed at John, for agreeing, and most of all, annoyed at himself, for even giving a damn. 

It had not been so very long in the scheme of life since John had nearly killed him. And they were not much more than accidental parents. The sex was good, but sex didn’t make John sentimental. On the whole, Santino suspected that John wasn’t even fully capable of complex sentiments. Right after the birth, he’d watched John hold the baby with a little frown on his usually blank face, as though trying to work out some kind of puzzle. It had been unsettling to watch.

The house up the hill was different, and for a moment Santino thought that they’d come to the wrong place. Then he saw the burned tree. For some reason, John hadn’t chosen to have it cut down: Santino glanced up at its crown of blackened branches, sighed, and walked over to the door. 

John answered the door, of all people, and he stared, clearly surprised. He was leaning heavily on a crutch, face bruised, one leg heavily splinted, and he stood stiffly, hiding other injuries under a soft white shirt, but he was most definitely not near death. 

“So. Not dying,” Santino said, his voice flat. 

“No?” 

Santino looked past John into the smaller house, where Cassian was drinking a beer on the couch. “You’re fired.” 

“I was gonna work for your daughter anyway,” Cassian said, unrepentant, and raised his beer in a mocking toast. “She likes me more and she isn’t a jackass.”

“Let’s talk,” John said quickly. Santino narrowed his eyes. “One hour. No guns.” 

Santino glared at him, tucking his hands into his pockets. “I suppose some courtesies need to be returned in kind,” he said, as coldly as he could, and John nodded, limping into the house. John sat down heavily at the dinner table, and life _did_ feel like it was coming back in a circle. Deja vu was unwelcome, disorienting. Santino sat opposite him, thin-lipped. The door closed: Cassian had let himself out. 

“Cassian told you I was dying?” John rubbed his unshaven jaw ruefully. “Few days ago, it was kinda true. Bullet nicked something important. Then I got an infection.” 

On closer look, John _did_ still look pale: he was sweating under his shirt, even though the house was cool. “So why aren’t you in a hospital?”

John shrugged. “Got fixed up by the Bowery King’s op. Didn’t want to stay long once I was stable. Got Cassian to help me back here. Didn’t think he’d call you. I was going to head back to Italy once I could.” 

“You owed the Bowery King a favour.” 

“Taking out Ferrara messed up the balance of power. KLA tried muscling into the vacuum. Tried to take out the other players, starting with whoever looked most comfortable. They got real close. The Bowery King called me in to save his ass.” 

Albanian mafia. Santino scowled. “You should’ve told me you were going.” 

“You wouldn’t have let me.”

“And that would’ve mattered?” 

“Yeah,” John said, blinking. “‘Course.” 

“You went anyway.”

“Last of my debts. Thought I’d take care of it quickly and call you after. Before you got too mad.” 

“I’m not that sentimental.” 

John tilted his head. “Why’re you here, then?” 

Santino forced a smile. Why _was_ he here? “Loose ends. But you’re not at death’s door, clearly. I’ll take my leave.” 

John stared at him, inscrutable. “Am I still welcome? In Naples?” 

“What do you think?” Santino tapped his fingers impatiently on the glass. Was it near an hour yet? He was getting too angry to care. “You left the estate in secret to work for one of my main rivals in New York. You say that you have no other debts, but I’m not sure if I can still trust you. We had an agreement—that you would work for _me_ —one that you broke. Make a guess.” 

“Thought so.” John didn’t even blink. Santino had to bite his tongue. If John had accepted that much already, then anger would only be embarrassing. Fury always made him lightheaded. Santino took in deep breath, and let it out evenly.

“Goodbye, John,” Santino said, starting to get to his feet. 

“Time’s not yet up.” 

“What else do we have to talk about?” 

“I want to make another deal.” 

“Is there a point?” 

“Cassian’s convinced that you’re trying to get me killed. One difficult job after another. I’m slowing down. Sometimes it hurts when it’s too cold in the morning. Not complaining. Just letting you know.” 

Santino stared at John, a little surprised. He’d never thought of John as someone who could get _old_ , somehow. The reaper always seemed untouched by time, and John was still the best by far, in his profession. Relentless, unnaturally focused. He sometimes looked tired, sure, but Santino had not thought that a consequence of something as mundane as age. Legends did not age. 

John nodded, as though satisfied. “Used to think that might be the case. But I don’t think it’s true. Thought maybe you just didn’t know. And I didn’t want to help the Bowery King. I just didn’t want him to think he could maybe call on Gianna for my debt someday. Or you.” 

“Sounds like he would’ve stopped being a problem if you’d ignored him.”

“Maybe.” Maybe not. The Bowery King and his outfit were survivors, and debts had currency in their world, more than the coins, even without the formality of a marker. Santino understood that. Even if he didn’t like it. “I know you don’t really care whether I have a good reason or a bad reason.” 

Santino sneered. “Is it that obvious?”

John palmed something from his pockets and slid it across the glass; it grated as it went. A marker. Santino’s temper left him in a cold rush—he blinked owlishly at John, stunned. “Didn’t know what else might get your attention,” John said. “A blood oath, right? I swear I don’t have any other debts. I’m still willing to work. On top of the marker. You won’t ever have to call it in.” 

“You and your dramatic gestures.” Santino flicked the maker open. Its inner face was still clean, of course. The oath had not yet been made. He closed it, and pushed it back across the table, in a mirror of history. John straightened up, his only outward sign of disappointment. But he wasn’t surprised. 

“Please,” John said. He looked bone-tired, worn down. 

Months ago, at this table, John had not been this weary: his refusal had been reflexive rather than absolute. It had not come from a broken-down man—if it had, Santino would have honoured John’s request to be left alone. He had no use for broken things, or so he had thought before. Now he knew differently. Damaged people like John were dangerous because they did not live by the rules of the world. What was it Winston had said before? John had been given a taste of a normal life, one that he had liked, and then Santino had taken it away. History had rewound, the cycle starting to close. 

Santino did not fear John, now or before. But Santino _had_ learned a few lessons since, some harder than others, particularly about the pointlessness of spiteful decisions. 

Besides. He did care. 

“Fine,” Santino said, if with ill grace. John blinked. “I was thinking of making you grovel, but you probably wouldn’t have been any good at it.” 

“Probably not,” John admitted warily. “…We’re okay?”

“No. I’m still… what do you people like to say? _Pissed_.” English could be so hideous. Gianna’s first spoken language, if Santino had anything to do with it, would either be Italian or Neapolitan. “You are not forgiven. And you owe me.” 

“All right.” John moved to pick up the marker, turning it around, the spike facing up. Santino pinned his wrist. 

“I don’t want it. A marker is a sign of desperation. An oath that is a promise to trade. A favour to repay a favour.” Santino let go. “I don’t think that what you owe me—and our daughter—is something that can be so quickly repaid. Nor is what _I_ owe either of you something that I can forget.” Even if he wanted to. He could see that much now.

John nodded slowly, and pocketed the marker. “Are you well enough to fly?” Santino asked. 

“Think so.” 

“Good. Get in the car.”

#

Cassian was permanently switched to what he tended to call the ‘cradle shift’, possibly because Santino liked holding grudges. “If he’s trying to punish me I kinda don’t feel it,” Cassian said, as they sat in the garden.

John was holding Gianna, the nanny and other staff hovering close by but out of sight. It was weird how technical holding a baby was. The head and neck always had to be supported. One hand on the bottom. A cradle hold. Gianna stared up at him soberly. “Maybe it wasn’t about you. I think Ares is happier,” John said.

“Probably. She was going a little stir crazy.” 

“Thanks,” John said, because he hadn’t really said it before. “For everything.”

“That’s cute. You think that I did all that for you?” Cassian said, and leaned over, poking Gianna on the nose. She made a squeak of delight. “The joke’s on the boss. Her first word is gonna be ‘Cassian’. Just you wait.” 

John was still recovering, which meant tiring easily. He got Gianna back to the nursery and limped off to sleep, waking up in the morning when Santino’s phone went off. Santino growled something ugly in Neapolitan as he answered it, rubbing his eyes, snapping a few curt commands before he turned it off and tossed the phone across the room. Dog instantly shot off the foot of the bed, fetching the phone and coming back, wagging his tail as he dropped the phone neatly on the side table. 

“I didn’t want you to do that,” Santino told Dog. The tail wagged harder, and Dog licked Santino’s knuckles, even as John hauled himself closer, swallowing a pained grunt at the effort, nuzzling scent glands. Santino always smelled so good in the mornings. “The two of you,” Santino grumbled, though he petted Dog and let John rest an arm over his waist. 

“Meeting went okay?”

“After Ares broke a few fingers, yes.” Santino yawned. “Better today?” 

“Getting there.” John kissed his neck. “Cassian really likes cradle duty, by the way.” 

“I’ve heard. If our daughter’s first word is really his name, I’m taking out a contract on him. Not joking.” 

“Noted.” John lay comfortably still, closing his eyes. 

“Do you still have that marker?”

“Yeah. Why?” 

“Hand it back to Rome’s Continental. And don’t give one out again. Markers are a serious matter.” 

John knew that, but he nodded instead. Markers _were_ a sign of desperation. Each time he’d offered one to Santino, he’d had nowhere left to turn. “Thought you’d accept it a second time,” he admitted. 

“What for?” Santino said, twisting carefully, so as not to press against any wounds. “A marker like that from you would just tempt me to use it. Someday.” 

“I said you wouldn’t have to call it in. For me to do what you want.”

“An offer to work is not the same as an offer of a marker, John. You know that. You can refuse names, normally. Argue, even. But a marker’s name cannot be refused. Think.” Santino had a gambler’s soul, and Fortuna’s wheel was not always kind. John understood that. “Besides. I don’t need it. How long before you are recovered?”

John thought this over. “Couple of weeks?” 

“Good.”

“Could use the time to plan,” John suggested. That’d make killing quicker. Hopefully easier, too. It was how John compensated now for age. Exit routes, weapon caches. Luck was for younger men. 

“I’m not talking about work,” Santino said, glowering at him. “You have other things to attend to. And I know from experience that your performance is terrible when you’re injured.” 

Ah. Right. “Could still use the time to plan,” John said, and winced as Santino growled and shoved him down on his back, climbing on top.

**Author's Note:**

> oh god please self control, make up  
> EDIT: I was meaning to add: I'm not sure how many other Singaporeans would read this, but Epigram closes in August this year. So get your skates on if you (like me) haven't started. :D http://ebfp.epigrambooks.sg/ And remember to read the rules. There are some weird rules.  
> -  
> twitter: manic_intent  
> tumblr: manic-intent


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